Global dream breeds local pageants

The crack of dawn is still a while away, the city slumbers on. But 23-year-old Vanshree Joshi is sweating it out at a neighbourhood health c...

The crack of dawn is still a while away, the city slumbers on. But 23-year-old Vanshree Joshi is sweating it out at a neighbourhood health club, well into her 120-minute daily workout. It’s gruelling, but she can’t miss a single day’s workout, not when she is an MA Sociology and Maharashtra Sundari. To be precise, My Marathi Lavanywati Maharashtra Sundari 2002. Former second runner-up Miss Dombivili. No crown at Campus Princess 2000, Bandra. ‘‘How can you win them all?’’ she asks.

Elsewhere in the city, Miss Mumbai 2001-02 (crowned 10 days before her standard XI finals) Pooja Shah is jogging at Shivaji Park, never mind the early hour. She’ll follow this up with meditation, then the gym and, in a few hours, also the evening walk with an audition or two thrown in between and shoots until midnight or 2 am.

Scattered across the city are the May Queens, Miss Dombivilis, Miss Vasais and Miss Mumbais. They may not be very popular, but that doesn’t deter them from starting young. Often when they’re still in Std X. Equally often in evening gowns borrowed for the occasion — a very local beauty contest.

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Always with oodles of Bombay Dreams. Soon, they’ll skip college, meals, movies, but not a workout or audition. Some will enroll for grooming lessons, wade through ‘general knowledge’ books for information that could come in use during a Q&A round…

But Std X was a long time ago for this winner of an American diamond-studded Miss Maharashtra crown. Since then, she’s learnt to cope with the competition. ‘‘Even if I drink an extra glass of water, I put on weight…I don’t eat anything between shoots and I skip dinner for fruits,’’ Joshi says.

HSC student Pooja Shah’s story is similar, with one difference. ‘‘I’m going to sign as main lead for South Indian movies. They don’t like skinny women, you know. So I’m trying to put on weight. I eat everything. If I can put on weight, I can lose it too,’’ she says. That’s life at 18, with little or no room for college.

Joshi was 16 when she walked the ramp for the Miss Dombivili pageant. She lost the crown because she said ‘‘the antonym of entry is dysentery’’.

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Today she has four Marathi and two Hindi serials in her kitty, but there’s no mistaking the wistful tone under that enthusiasm. ‘‘All these contests are fixed, so much politics. It’s frustrating, you know, but how can you be a Bipasha Basu or Madhuri Dixit just like that? My parents agree that these contests are a step by step thing. For Miss Dombivili I wore my cousin’s gown. I was so tense, imagine wearing a backless gown in front of your parents!’’

Hopeful Miss Mumbais get sponsored costumes besides training, so Shah walked away with a title plus perks. ‘‘I had no idea how to apply make-up. Now I can apply it in a minute. I didn’t know how to walk the ramp and now I’m confident. They taught me how to speak, how to walk, everything.’’